These brief extracts chosen by Peter Paine, which have fed him on the journey of his life and sustained him in his Christian ministry, will also inspire the reader to find deeper purpose and meaning in their own life.

Augustine’s responses to conflicts within the North African church remain surprisingly relevant to contemporary crises in Catholicism. His writings contain his mature thought on the nature of the sacraments, the morality of the clergy, and the importance of mercy and charity in maintaining church unity.

Chiara Lubich sees the Church as a living reality, an event of communion, and she gives a stimulating answer to the question, ‘What is the Church?’ She responds that it is not a ‘what’ but a ‘who’ because the Church is Jesus in the midst of his people. And the task of the Church is to be, within humanity, a catalyst for unity.

This collection of texts highlights the powerful action of the Holy Spirit at the beginning of the Focolare Movement. It helps us to enter into the intimacy of Chiara Lubich’s relationship with the Holy Spirit and how she communicated to others her passion that he, the ‘unknown God’ may be known, welcomed and loved.

‘A Revelation of Love’ was written by a woman about whom we know very little, yet she has had an enormous impact on the spirituality of our time, and is now just being rediscovered as a teacher and theologian of great originality and depth.

Gym for the Soul is a book of poetry inspired by the quest to find God in the everyday nuts and bolts of life’s experiences. The title refers to workout, something we can do each day – a spiritual workout – if only we keep our eyes and ears open for God among us.

In this edited selection from the accounts Angela dictated both of her visionary experiences and her advice and insights, Elizabeth Ruth Obbard has rendered into direct speech the voice of a woman from the thirteenth century, robust and passionate, constantly open to fresh perspectives.

In this book we meet a frivolous teenager, who became a frivolous nun at twenty-one, hoping thereby to avoid marriage and childbearing and attain heaven, without too much effort. Teresa of Avila writes engagingly and honestly, allowing us to follow her struggles with not only her health, but with the conflict between her desire for a life of prayer in a real relationship with God and her attachment to the comforts and distractions of her not- at- all strict convent.

Elizabeth Catez (Sr Elizabeth of the Trinity) wrote two retreats towards the end of her life. They have been chosen here, together with her famous prayer to the Trinity, in the hope that they will help the reader to be led into Elizabeth’s silence, and into sharing her secret of total surrender in love to the One she called ‘her Three’.

In Chiara Lubich’s understanding, Mary is ‘the flower of humanity’ who through her ‘Yes’ at the Annunciation, gave Jesus physically to the world; and all of us are called to become little Marys’ generating the presence of Jesus spiritually by living out Jesus’ promise: ‘Where two or three are united in my name, I am there among them’ (Mt. 18: 20).

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